Orthodontics is the practice of manipulating a patient's teeth to provide better function and appearance. In general, brackets are bonded to a patient's teeth and coupled together with an arched wire. The combination of the brackets and wire provide a force on the teeth causing them to move. Once the teeth have moved to a desired location and are held in a place for a certain period of time, the body adapts bone and tissue to maintain the teeth in the desired location. To further assist in retaining the teeth in the desired location, a patient may be fitted with a retainer.
To achieve tooth movement, orthodontists utilize their expertise to first determine a three-dimensional mental image of the patient's physical orthodontic structure and a three-dimensional mental image of a desired physical orthodontic structure for the patient, which may be assisted through the use of x-rays and/or models. Based on these mental images, the orthodontist further relies on his/her expertise to place the brackets and/or bands on the teeth and to manually bend (i.e., shape) wire, such that a force is asserted on the teeth to reposition the teeth into the desired physical orthodontic structure. As the teeth move towards the desired location, the orthodontist makes continual judgments as to the progress of the treatment, the next step in the treatment (e.g., new bend in the wire, reposition or replace brackets, is head gear required, etc.), and the success of the previous step.
In general, the orthodontist makes manual adjustments to the wire and/or replaces or repositions brackets based on his or her expert opinion. Unfortunately, in the oral environment, it is difficult for a human being to accurately develop a visual three-dimensional image of an orthodontic structure due to the limitations of human sight and the physical structure of a human mouth. In addition, it is difficult to accurately estimate three-dimensional wire bends (with an accuracy within a few degrees) and to manually apply such bends to a wire. Further, it is difficult to determine an ideal bracket location to achieve the desired orthodontic structure based on the mental images. It is also difficult to manually place brackets in what is estimated to be the ideal location. Accordingly, orthodontic treatment is an iterative process requiring multiple wire changes, with the process success and speed being very much dependent on the orthodontist's motor skills and diagnostic expertise. As a result of multiple wire changes, patient discomfort is increased as well as the cost. As one would expect, the quality of care varies greatly from orthodontist to orthodontist as does the time to treat a patient.
As described, the practice of orthodontic is very much an art, relying on the expert opinions and judgments of the orthodontist. In an effort to shift the practice of orthodontic from an art to a science, many innovations have been developed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,518,397 issued to Andreiko, et. al. provides a method of forming an orthodontic brace. Such a method includes obtaining a model of the teeth of a patient's mouth and a prescription of desired positioning of such teeth. The contour of the teeth of the patient's mouth is determined, from the model. Calculations of the contour and the desired positioning of the patient's teeth are then made to determine the geometry (e.g., grooves or slots) to be provided. Custom brackets including a special geometry are then created for receiving an arch wire to form an orthodontic brace system. Such geometry is intended to provide for the disposition of the arched wire on the bracket in a progressive curvature in a horizontal plane and a substantially linear configuration in a vertical plane. The geometry of the brackets is altered, (e.g., by cutting grooves into the brackets at individual positions and angles and with particular depth) in accordance with such calculations of the bracket geometry. In such a system, the brackets are customized to provide three-dimensional movement of the teeth, once the wire, which has a two dimensional shape (i.e., linear shape in the vertical plane and curvature in the horizontal plane), is applied to the brackets.
Other innovations relating to bracket and bracket placements have also been patented. For example, such patent innovations are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,618,716 entitled “Orthodontic Bracket and Ligature” a method of ligating arch wires to brackets, U.S. Pat. No. 5,011,405 “Entitled Method for Determining Orthodontic Bracket Placement,” U.S. Pat. No. 5,395,238 entitled “Method of Forming Orthodontic Brace,” and U.S. Pat. No. 5,533,895 entitled “Orthodontic Appliance and Group Standardize Brackets therefore and methods of making, assembling and using appliance to straighten teeth”.
Kuroda et al. (1996) Am. J. Orthodontics 110:365-369 describes a method for laser scanning a plaster dental cast to produce a digital image of the cast. See also U.S. Pat. No. 5,605,459. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,533,895; 5,474,448; 5,454,717; 5,447,432; 5,431,562; 5,395,238; 5,368,478; and 5,139,419, assigned to Ormco Corporation, describe methods for manipulating digital images of teeth for designing orthodontic appliances.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,011,405 describes a method for digitally imaging a tooth and determining optimum bracket positioning for orthodontic treatment. Laser scanning of a molded tooth to produce a three-dimensional model is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,338,198. U.S. Pat. No. 5,452,219 describes a method for laser scanning a tooth model and milling a tooth mold. Digital computer manipulation of tooth contours is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,607,305 and 5,587,912. Computerized digital imaging of the arch is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,342,202 and 5,340,309.
Other patents of interest include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,549,476; 5,382,164; 5,273,429; 4,936,862; 3,860,803; 3,660,900; 5,645,421; 5,055,039; 4,798,534; 4,856,991; 5,035,613; 5,059,118; 5,186,623; and 4,755,139.
The key to efficiency in treatment and maximum quality in results is a realistic simulation of the treatment process. Today's orthodontists have the possibility of taking plaster models of the upper and lower arch, cutting the model into single tooth models and sticking these tooth models into a wax bed, lining them up in the desired position, the so-called set-up. This approach allows for reaching a perfect occlusion without any guessing. The next step is to bond a bracket at every tooth model. This would tell the orthodontist the geometry of the wire to run through the bracket slots to receive exactly this result. The next step involves the transfer of the bracket position to the original malocclusion model. To make sure that the brackets will be bonded at exactly this position at the real patient's teeth, small templates for every tooth would have to be fabricated that fit over the bracket and a relevant part of the tooth and allow for reliable placement of the bracket on the patient's teeth. To increase efficiency of the bonding process, another option would be to place each single bracket onto a model of the malocclusion and then fabricate one single transfer tray per arch that covers all brackets and relevant portions of every tooth. Using such a transfer tray guarantees a very quick and yet precise bonding using indirect bonding.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,431,562 to Andreiko et al. describes a computerized, appliance-driven approach to orthodontics. In this method, first certain shape information of teeth is acquired. A uniplanar target arcform is calculated from the shape information. The shape of customized bracket slots, the bracket base, and the shape of the orthodontic archwire, are calculated in accordance with a mathematically-derived target archform. The goal of the Andreiko et al. method is to give more predictability, standardization, and certainty to orthodontics by replacing the human element in orthodontic appliance design with a deterministic, mathematical computation of a target archform and appliance design. Hence the '562 patent teaches away from an interactive, computer-based system in which the orthodontist remains fully involved in patient diagnosis, appliance design, and treatment planning and monitoring.
More recently, Align Technology, Inc. began offering transparent, removable aligning devices as a new treatment modality in orthodontics. In this system, an impression model of the dentition of the patient is obtained by the orthodontist and shipped to a remote appliance manufacturing center, where it is scanned with a CT scanner. A computer model of the dentition in a target situation is generated at the appliance manufacturing center and made available for viewing to the orthodontist over the Internet. The orthodontist indicates changes they wish to make to individual tooth positions. A revised virtual model is provided for the orthodontist to review, until the target situation is agreed upon. A series of removable aligning devices or shells are manufactured and delivered to the orthodontist. The shells will move the patient's teeth to the desired or target position.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,699,037 describes improved methods and systems for repositioning teeth from an initial tooth arrangement to a final tooth arrangement. Repositioning is accomplished with a system comprising a series of appliances configured to receive the teeth in a cavity and incrementally reposition individual teeth in a series of successive steps, usually including at least four successive steps, often including at least ten steps, sometimes including at least twenty-five steps, and occasionally including forty or more steps. Most often, the methods and systems will reposition teeth in from ten to twenty-five successive steps, although complex cases involving many of the patient's teeth may take forty or more steps. The successive use of a number of such appliances permits each appliance to be configured to move individual teeth in small increments, typically less than 2 mm, preferably less than 1 mm, and more preferably less than 0.5 mm. These values refer to the maximum linear translation of any point on a tooth as a result of using a single appliance. The movements provided by successive appliances, of course, will usually not be the same for any particular tooth. Thus, one point on a tooth may be moved by a different distance as a result of the use of one appliance and thereafter moved by a different distance and/or in a different direction by a later appliance.
The individual appliances preferably comprise a polymeric shell having the teeth-receiving cavity formed therein, typically by molding. Each individual appliance is configured so that its tooth-receiving cavity has a geometry corresponding to an intermediate or end tooth arrangement intended for that appliance. That is, when an appliance is first worn by the patient, certain of the teeth will be misaligned relative to an undeformed geometry of the appliance cavity. The appliance, however, is sufficiently resilient to accommodate or conform to the misaligned teeth, and will apply sufficient resilient force against such misaligned teeth in order to reposition the teeth to the intermediate or end arrangement desired for that treatment step.
The fabrication of aligners using a stereo lithography process is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,471,511 and 6,682,346. The stereo lithography process builds the aligner layer by layer, and may use a different aligner mold at each stage of the treatment. There is therefore a long felt need for practical, effective and efficient methods to produce a dental aligner.
Other long recognized issues with the dental aligners include the loss of function due relaxation of the dental aligner over time, inconvenience, and oral hygiene problems. The conventional aligners often become relaxed and open up after repeated usage by a patient. The dental aligner tends to bend outwards when a patient bites the aligner. The repeated removal and wearing of the aligner can also cause the bottom part of the aligner to expand. The deformation results in a loss of corrective force to be applied to the patient's teeth by the aligner device and insufficient or inaccurate teeth movement in the orthodontic treatment. The corrective measures can also be costly.
Conventional aligners can be inconvenient to use. Damage and loss of dental aligners is the major cause for reordering and remaking of the dental aligners. The conventional dental aligners require special care by the patient: the aligners are required to be kept in a cool and dry place and in special containers to prevent them from being damaged. The dental aligners need to be handled with care to avoid damages which can be caused by for example sharp fingernails. Another cause of relaxation is the inherent properties of the material. The patient is also recommended not to drink hot beverages because the aligner material is often sensitive to excessive heat.
The patient's oral hygiene can also be compromised. The aligners can retain an unpleasant appearance from smoking, or become dirty and catch permanent stains from the food or drinks. It is recommended that the conventional dental aligners should be removed before eating, drinking, and smoking, which is often inconvenient and impractical.